TALLAHASSEE -- The Seminole Tribe of Florida came to the capital Monday and made an offer Florida legislators may find hard to refuse: It promised to create 45,000 new jobs, deliver billions in economic development and hand a check over to the state for $288 million in new revenue to spend next year.

There's only one problem, said the chairman of the House committee reviewing the issue. To accept the offer, the Legislature would have to ratify the compact between the tribe and Gov. Charlie Crist that's been invalidated by the Florida Supreme Court and which House Republicans would like to re-write.

''I believe this is a new negotiation,'' said Rep. Bill Galvano, acting chairman of the Select Committee on Seminole Indian Compact Review. ``We have to view what is presented today as an offer.''

The agreement Crist negotiated with the tribe in November 2007 allowed the Seminoles to have the exclusive operation of blackjack in Florida and squelch competition by preventing the expansion of casinos. In return, the tribe would guarantee the state $100 million each year and as much as $500 million in the future.

But Galvano and other House Republicans ask: Could they have negotiated a better deal?

Galvano pointed to ''a dearth of regulation that occurred in this compact.'' House lawmakers also don't like the idea that the tribe gets card games such as blackjack while Florida's parimutuels don't.

''The appetite for the Florida House of Representatives is not there to expand the card games,'' Galvano said. Instead, the committee will try to find an alternative to the deal crafted by Crist and his chief deputies, George LeMieux and Paul Huck, during nearly a year of closed-door negotiations.

''It's kind of an insult to the governor,'' said Barry Richard, lawyer for the tribe, who represented the Seminoles in the negotiations. ``...What are they saying? He didn't know what he was doing or he didn't have the best interests of the state at heart?''

Richard urged legislators to sign now and change their minds later. If lawmakers ratify the compact as negotiated by Crist, they can ''take the money and run,'' he said, using it to help fill the $3.5 billion budget hole next year.

After that, if legislators want to give blackjack or other games to the horse and dog tracks and jai alai frontons, they can -- and still keep the Seminole cash. The $288 million is what the state would have been entitled to in revenue sharing if the compact had been in force, along with another $12 million a month that will accumulate next year.

Jim Allen, CEO of Seminole Gaming, told the committee that the tribe's long-range plans included expansions that will result in a total of 45,000 jobs, including construction of a guitar-shaped hotel in Hollywood, and expanded hotel developments at its Coconut Creek, Tampa and Immokalee sites.

LeMieux recommended that if Galvano and others want to reopen the negotiations, they should ''give the governor some parameters that are achieveable'' and allow him to approach the tribe. But LeMieux is skeptical that lawmakers would be be able to take away card games and other gambling already here.

The House's fierce opposition to the gambling compact has been eroding steadily , however, as the state's fiscal outlook has worsened. The replacement of anti-gambling stalwart Rep. Ray Sansom as speaker Monday opened the door to more pro-gambling legislation under the new speaker Rep. Larry Cretul of Ocala.

That could translate into legislators lowering the 50-percent tax rate on slot machines -- a rate which the parimutuel industry in Miami-Dade and Broward says has forced it to operate at a net loss, making it impossible for them to produce the revenues they promised would help fund education. Galvano said lowering the tax is a possibility.

Reach Mary Ellen Klas at meklas@MiamiHerald.com

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